Center: Anthony Davis
Honorable Mentions: Joel Embiid, DeMarcus Cousins, JaVale McGee, Al Horford, DeAndre Jordan
It pains me to leave Joel Embiid off this list, since he’s the perfect mix of off-court goofiness and on-court dominance, but he probably hasn’t been around long enough just yet, and Giannis kind of already fills that role anyway. Maybe a cameo here or a starring role in Space Jam 3, JoJo?
DeMarcus Cousins would be fun if he were fully healthy, and would provide that behemoth body type the Monstars need to be physically imposing, but we have no idea how he’ll look coming off the Achilles injury and we’ve already got one Warrior in the lineup.
We weren’t able to add one of LeBron’s new Lakers teammates, but JaVale McGee came the closest since he literally looks like the blue Monstar from the original Space Jam. Al Horford and DeAndre Jordan nearly made the list too, but Horford’s game has too much finesse for the Moron Mountain aliens to be interested in, and Jordan falls behind most of the more interesting options.
That leaves us with the best center in the NBA, Anthony Davis. He’s a two-way terror, a frontrunner for the 2018-19 MVP award and he’s extremely marketable. Plus, not only would we get to bring back his Foot Locker chemistry with James Harden, but we’d have a Monstar with a massive beard and another with AD’s trademark unibrow!
That would leave us with a Monstar starting five of Chris Paul, James Harden, Giannis Antetotkounmpo, Draymond Green and Anthony Davis — a terrific blend of superstar talent, unique NBA bodies, and plenty of on-screen charisma and humor.
All we’d need at that point would be sixth woman Diana Taurasi, Michael B. Jordan (because Ryan Coogler’s involved, of course), a Dwyane Wade appearance, cameos from Adam Silver and Bill Murray, a Kendrick Lamar-inspired soundtrack with guest appearances from Drake, someone to save us from too much Kevin Hart, and of course, an obligatory callback to Michael Jordan out of respect for the original, most likely in the form of a one-liner from Air Jordan himself.